Halloween: Secret Darkness
by Valkyrie4
Summary: Sequel to Halloween: Resurrection. Donald, an old friend of Loomis, returns to Haddonfield and discovers that the town isn't all it used to be. What happened? And where's Michael? Rated for future chapters.


Halloween: Secret Darkness

November 7th 1998.

Cold air snapped at him as he wrapped his duster jacket around his body, the wind whipped around him and he shuddered. Donald had gotten a call from a friend, Helena Tweed, at four in the morning, begging him to go see her. She sounded afraid, deathly afraid. Of what she didn't say and he couldn't possibly imagine what it could be.

"Donald? Donald, please come over…I need to see you, there's…there's something you have to know."

"What, Helena…? It's four in the morning…"

"I know…please come over, Don, please…I don't want to be on my own. You shouldn't be either…oh…oh God…we knew him!"

"Knew who? Helena, calm down."

"Sam! We knew him; we knew his work! Oh Jesus God…what if…Don, you HAVE to come here! Please?"

"Alright…Alright, just calm down, okay? I'll be there soon."

The call couldn't have been more than two minutes long, but it was enough to pass on the fear to him. He didn't know why he was afraid, but he knew that Helena – a hardy, strong-willed woman – wasn't easily spooked. And what spooked her was sure to put the fear of God into him. It wasn't just her frantic raving about Sam, God rest his soul; it was what she called him.

Don.

She never, ever called him Don unless she was very upset. Something was deeply wrong, and he didn't know if he wanted to find out.

Her house was only a few blocks away from his. Leaving the car in the driveway seemed like a good idea at the time, but as he walked briskly down the empty streets he kept cursing himself for doing so. It was too cold to just walk around at this time of day.

He couldn't remember the last time the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois had been so quiet. Then again, he couldn't remember the last time he walked the streets at four a.m. Had he been walking around at this time just under a week earlier he would have had teenagers wreaking havoc upon him. He hated Halloween. He never liked it when he was a kid, sweets and candy never stood right with his stomach, but when Halloween 1978 came around…that's when he became the Scrooge of one of the most popular western holidays, from then on it lost what little redeeming features it had. Most people seemed afraid to go out on Halloween these days, not that they could be blamed.

He reached the front door of his old colleague's home, knocked, and waited barely seconds before it opened to reveal a very pale, obviously distraught Helena. Her long brunette hair was a tangled mess, thick strands stuck to the tears that stained her cheeks and the white shirt she wore showed signs of her attempts at making coffee, which proved more difficult than it seemed with trembling hands. Donald couldn't help but let his eyes briefly drop down to her bare legs. He'd always found Helena incredibly attractive and he wondered if she ever thought the same about him.

"Thanks for coming…" she sniffed. Donald smiled a weak smile and shook his head a little.

"Don't mention it," he said, which got him a weak half-smile and admission to her house.

He always enjoyed being in her home, every time he was there the place smelled like honey, and it was old fashioned: tassels, flowery (but not gaudy or tacky) furniture, dark wood and a wood-burning fire. He loved it, and wished his house could be like hers, or better yet, wished he could move in with her.

"Are you okay?" He asked. Helena sighed and sat on the settee with him, she took a cigarette from the packet on the coffee table and placed it between her lips. Donald frowned and watched. "I thought you'd quit," the young woman chuckled bitterly and lit the cigarette.

"Yeah…I did. I was doing good too, right up until last week."

"Why? What happened?" Helena took a long drag, savoured the taste and smoke, exhaled, and leant back in her seat.

"Twenty years…Don…it's been twenty years…"

"What?"

"He left her alone for twenty years…then, last week…he came back for her."

"Who, Helena? What are you talking about?"

"Who do you think? Michael!" She snapped, finishing off the cigarette.

"Myers?" The name took him by surprise; he'd thought they had heard the last of Michael Myers a long time ago. He'd only moved to Haddonfield permanently the year before and the last he'd heard of the notorious killer was that he'd been burned alive by the explosion at the hospital. Like Laurie, he and Helena hadn't known about Michael's hunt for Jamie Lloyd, her untimely demise, and what was supposed to be his final sacrifice. But Laurie had messed it up for him by making him think she was dead and having another child.

Helena explained to him the events that took place in the school where Laurie Strode taught, that Michael had finally found her and her family and had tried to kill them. She told him about their final face-off, about the subsequent beheading, and the fact that it wasn't Michael she had killed, but a lowly paramedic who'd had his larynx crushed by Myers.

"Shit and damn…" muttered Donald, blinking down at the floor, "do you know if she's alright?" Helena shook her head and sighed softly.

"No…she's not, she was committed to a mental institute…can't say I blame her for breaking down; she killed an innocent man."

"Wasn't her fault, though."

"No, but that's not the point…she killed a man, a man with a family, no matter what she thought before she _still_ took his life."

"Is this why you called me over? Because of Michael?" Helena nodded solemnly. Almost ashamed that she was afraid even though they both knew that he very much was something to fear.

"You know the killer was most likely a copycat, right?" Helena sighed and brought her knees up to her chest. He could very well be right; Myers hadn't been seen for quite a long time and the chances of him finding Laurie under her fake name was pretty far-fetched. But then…

"…No normal person could take the damage Laurie said he took that night…" Donald rubbed his jaw and yawned quietly.

"Normal? Granted, Michael was not "normal" mentally, but he was still just a man."

"A man," Helena scoffed, "a man doesn't take a knife and six bullets to the chest, fall from the second floor of a house and walk away fit and healthy enough to commit several more murders on the _same night_. What he is, Don, is a monster."

"What he _was_, Helena, Michael died in the explosion."

"How do you know? How can you say that with so much certainty?"

"I'm a Doctor and I base my beliefs on scientific fact, Michael may very well have been physically superior to most other people but he _wasn't_ invulnerable." Helena had been taken in by Sam's talk of devils and demons, something Donald didn't – refused – to believe. He just couldn't see it happening.

"Look," he said, "Michael's dead. He's been dead for two decades. If he was going to come back he would have done it long ago."

"I…I guess…" she sighed, "it's just…I know Sam wouldn't have told us about the evil in Michael if he didn't truly believe it and he _was_ a man of science with a see-it-to-believe-it attitude, he wouldn't have accepted an evil force as an explanation for Michael's murderous tendencies if it wasn't true. He just wouldn't have." Donald wanted to change the subject. Though he didn't believe in evil as a tangible source, talking about it still made him uneasy.

"What you said on the phone…" he started, but Helena knew what he was going to ask, and so she interrupted with her answer.

"I'm afraid he's going to come for us…" she looked at him, eyes shimmering, "we both saw him, tried to make sense of him, studied him like a lab rat…what if he holds us in the same contempt he showed for Sam?"

What if…

"What if he comes back to Haddonfield? To find us, to take revenge on how we treated him when he was a boy?"

What if…

"What if Sam was right?" Helena practically yelled, "what if all the things he said about devils and evil, what if they're all true?"

What if…

"What if he really _is_ immortal? We can't fight that!" She was becoming increasingly agitated. Donald shook his head lightly. He knew there was no getting through to her right now. All she needed was sleep and maybe a drink or two.

Yeah, a drink, he could do with one right now too.

Several minutes passed, neither of them said a word.

"I want to go to South California…"

Donald almost choked.

"What? I thought you were afraid he'd come after you." Helena blinked slowly at the coffee table in front of her.

"Us. And I have to know if it was him or not, otherwise I'm going to go insane, wondering if he really is out there…"

"And what if he is out there, huh? It's a sure-fired way of getting yourself killed."

"What happened to the copycat theory?"

"I'm just saying."

"You're being difficult." Helena sighed and leant her chin on her knees.

"Damn right I am. Look, if it is him – and I'm not saying it is – then you could be killed. If it isn't him, then you're going on a huge trip for nothing. Either way staying here is the best and most logical option." She sighed again and nodded.

"I know…I just haven't been sleeping right since I heard about it, I had nightmares, you know? I kept seeing him, those eyes – that vacant stare that filled us with absolute dread, and chilled us to the bone. I won't sleep right until I know either way…" Donald put an arm around her when she started to tremble. He wanted to comfort her, to soothe her to sleep, tell her it would be all right and that he loved her. But he knew such words wouldn't help her right now, all the comfort in the world couldn't help her when she started worrying about Myers. Ever since they first saw him at Smith's Grove she'd been badly affected by what she saw in him. Sam's talk of evil lying within him, together with the deathly-pale skin, emotionless inky-black eyes that saw and watched everything but looked at nothing and the way he sat, still, not moving even when food was offered.

Though he wasn't emaciated, Michael was clearly malnourished, which made his feats of superhuman strength and seeming near-immortality in '78 even more astounding.

He sat there, half drowning in total blackness, and stared straight ahead, through the bars, through Sam, Donald, Helena and Doctor Bruce Stanfield, through the wall and beyond. The bulb had worn out years before. No one dared go in to put in a new one.

They did try to sedate him once. It took two darts of horse tranquillisers to get him to even slump forward a little bit. Any more would have cost too much money. Money they didn't have to spend on one patient.

Donald sighed.

"I'll make you a deal," he said. Helena looked up at him, "if there's another report about Michael, or even a suspected attack, we'll go. Until then you're to stay put right here, okay?" His friend sighed heavily, leant her head against his shoulder, and nodded slowly. It seemed like a decent request, and she knew that if Michael was out there, if he did strike at the Southern Californian school, then it wouldn't be very long until he murdered again. The only thing that bothered her, besides being a possible target, was that she'd have to wait for another person to lose his or her life before she'd know.

October 29th 2003

Donald pulled up in Haddonfield's town centre, not far from the hardware store. A year after the phone call from Helena, a year after waiting for Michael to come back, they both moved from Illinois to Washington on work-related business. Then last year, reports of an internet-broadcast from the Myers house reached the both of them.

He watched it, transfixed, and almost wept as they saw Michael butcher almost all of the kids in the house. Helena _did_ weep, copiously, as she clung onto Donald's shirt. "I knew it," she sobbed in a half-choked whisper, "I knew it…"

He got out of the car and looked around the empty autumn-leaf covered street. A small gust of wind blew a cluster down the road like a leafy tumbleweed.

_Four years…_

_It's been four years since I last set foot in Haddonfield…_

_Everything's different…_

_The people…the cars, or lack thereof of both…_

_It's a ghost town…_

_I see the same thing everywhere I go…_

_The same symbol…_

_A line with a triangle…_

_The symbol of Thorn…_


End file.
